kaBOOM

this morning i got a rather rude awakening (or two) after being meowed out of sleep by fraidycat, who are guest let out last night, and finally getting back to sleep.....

KABOOMbammClink. in the kitchen the remains of a bombing were evident. everywhere there was glass and porcellan pieces, tea bags and various other stuff... apparently our cat jumped on the shelf ad it came down, breaking most of the stuff on and under it. so if you come to the hope house, i will be serving orientel style tea and coffee (in mugs without handles).

worship wars, holy kisses, and names for God

the link above is to the itunes university site to get the lecture series i am talking about in this post. actually, i am not really going to talk about it.. if it interests you, listen for yourself. it is only three lectures.

but the underlining thought behind this lecture series is a concept that i have been interested in for awhile. the idea being how to translate my faith to others of a completely different socio-economic and theoistic background effectively. just to give y'all an idea of what i am thinking about (well, this and the old testament.. but i think thats obvious)

what words can be used? how do the Bible stories come across? what aspects of the local szene can be found in or related to the scripture? where is the 'hook' to get people interested?

OT survey: exodus and guest

yesturday i preached on exodus. i know.. that isnt a minor prophet, but i had just finished studiing it and there was no one signed up to preach, so i went for it. it was probably my longest sermon ever.. i mean just look at the length of the book (especially compared to other recent topics, like obadiah!) but it was a lot of fun. i was able to get people involved by asking an occassional question and having others who just finished exodus contribute what they noticed. i have a little group going now of people reading the bible chronologically...

after church a visiting jesus freak from berlin came to stay t the house.

looking ahead.. 2009

ok.. goal setting for the coming year. i do this as a way to help me stay accountable, and also to let others know what direction i am heading in in ministry and personal life.

ministry:
~to host on average one guest a month for months spent at the hope house
~to get involved with a missions organization
~to revive the street group Bible study
~to preach on average once a month
~to make a new film for PBS

personal:
~to start a masters of theology program through distance learning
~to read through the Bible chronologically
~to find a mentor
~to do more athletics for health (swimming, biking..)
~to get married! (is that a goal?)

rewind 2008

short monthly overview of the highlights:

january
Andrea stayed with us.
problems with matze

february
Stephan and the wandergesellin stayed at hope house.
Went to Venice.
Udo died.

march
Got really sick.
Parents came.
Met Andreas.
Erich died.
Guests from Holland jesus freaks.

april
marty moved in.
went to ACL conference.
Renewed visa.
Christival in Bremen, hosted four guests.

may
Counseling seminar.
Manuel visited hope house.
Murray and meg visited.
Hope house changed it’s goals.

june
two guests from jesus freaks celle.
Began to lead street group

july
took in enrico
took in jenny

august
went to Stuttgart three weeks.

september
staff retreat with café chance
catering and band support for uebersee festival
began preaching more often

october
took in karo and ben and his sister
took in karo and ben again

november
Jesus freaks seminar
passport turned up stolen
birgit’s daughter died
visited steiger in karlsruhe

december
led st nickolaus evangelism
had stress with housemate
went to dallas

2008

ok, anothor year has passed.. so get ready for a series of long post dedicated to analyzing it and summing it up. this is primarily for the missions committee, since i know you guys want to know what i do ;-)

in 2008 i set the following goals. the goals will be in italics, and the response underneath:


hope house:

~that we start a regular prayer time as a house
we failed. there were impromptu prayer times between moerssl and i for the house throughout the year, but a collaberation turned out to be rather difficult..

~renovations in the living/dining room (lay a floor mostly) and redo the main kitchen, solve the wet walls and drippy ceilings problem
we succeeded! thanks mostly to my father, who spent his vacation running around the hardware stores of bremen and fixing and building everything on my list and more! the landlord also had the roof redone and a leaky attick window.

~find out about possibility of buying the house
we succeeded.. but despite the offer to buy it, decided against doing so.

~take in at least 4 people for vision purposes, in addition to the other guests.
succeeded and more! We took in 8 guests for vision puposes (10 if you count karo and ben twice since they stayed here two separate times) and 17 people for other reasons (4 of those being my family).

~start the organization
failed.. we didn’t even try. It is too much hassle, everything we found out about it just made it undoable.

~find sponsors specifically for the house
failed.. we found a few prayer supporters, but no one who wants to financially help support the house.

personally:

~to make a full length documentary about the szene for festivals
failed.. my old computer just wasn’t up to the editing task, and my old foot wasn’t up to the walking around town part.

~to attain and maintain physical health
50-50… myhealth is doing better but isn’t completely restored.

~to preach more often
did I not say a number? Darn.. hard to tell. I think I did, though, especially the last few months.

~start a theology masters degree
failed.. but I did do the research involved and have some good ideas where to apply.

~avoid burn-out by getting out of town for at least one day a month, and at least one weekend every three, and at least one week every six- NOT related to ministry in any way.
50-50.. I didn’t break it down exactly the way I planed, but I did manage to get out of Bremen more often than in the past and had a visitor to Bremen that was not ministry related enough to meet my quota of days off.

~that the thing spoken over me by the fijian team come to pass. (hey, every year needs one cryptic one, right?)
:-D JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! It did, Easter Sunday.

and of course, not for me, but... that hans will finally manage to get clean.

Nope.. in fact, haven’t seen much of him. He is in a baaad place.

dallas in pictures